Sunday, February 22, 2009

To Move or Not to Move...too late to go back now

After the kids are grown up, but before retirement. There's probably 10-15 years in between (assuming retirement is even an option). I've been thinking (actually obsessing) about this span of time for quite some time. Whenever I get ahold of something, it's hard to let it go and move on to the next curiosity until the current one is satisfied. So after probably a year or so of pondering the next stage of life, I convinced Jerry that it was time to move out of subdivision heaven and on to a small town exploration....the lovely college town of West Chester borough.

The challenge of convincing Jerry took about 6 months, 50 visits to houses of all shapes, sizes and ages and many promises of sticking to a price range that would allow us to reduce expenses and pay off a mortgage in our lifetime. In addition, Jer didn't want to "buy a job."

To start, we had to sell our current house in Malvern in the worst housing economy in generations. Talk about excitement, challenge & adventure, not to mention a good dose of plain old insanity. Fortunately, Jer's always up for the wild ride. And in the end, we not only sold our Malvern house in four days, we bought the new house in just a little more time (and it is a new house...who knew you could find a new house with character in an old borough).

Our 30th wedding anniversary is in May, and I like to think that God figured it was a nice time to give us a fresh start for this late middle life stretch. At least that's how I like to frame the prospect of enjoying brand new appliances, fresh paint and maybe even a few new towels. But this move seems a gift for other reasons as well...the opportunity to go through a bit of a cleansing ritual and start fresh, purge old things, reduce clutter, adjust routines and apply some windex to the lens of purposeful living. I imagine I'll start obsessing a little more on the purposeful living part shortly.

Come April 30, we'll start a new chapter of our excellent adventure. Can't wait to see what's next.
Our New South Wayne Street House in West Chester Borough